Fences
by VintageManniqueen
Summary: Betty/Gladys, Gladys/James. Set following the war with flashbacks to the factory days. Might continue? Hot mess.
1. Chapter 1

**I think I might continue this, but I could really use some help! I have so many fics going all at once that are pretty relative and could probably be condensed into this one. If you would like to beta and aid in the salvation of my sanity, please PM me!**

* * *

Approaching two years after the end of the war and a little over one since the wedding, Gladys was still maneuvering her slim form through shadowy doorways and into Betty's arms.

During the war, it wasn't a big fuss for the girls to slip into each other's company at all hours of the night. They were just young things in the most exciting time of the century; youthful feet excitedly pattering the sidewalks during the wee hours of morning were to be expected in those times. But these days, a married woman couldn't be seen prowling about the neighborhood beyond her own white picket fence after 7 o'clock.

It came as an unimaginable relief when Betty bought the home in back of Gladys and James's own modest bungalow. James himself cosigned her papers (a girl only made so much in the factory, and it wasn't exactly easy to find a decent paycheck after the boys came home) and popped the cork at her impromptu welcome party, attended only by Betty, Gladys and James, and, in spirit (by telephone) dear sweet Vera, who had landed earlier that month in Hollywood to work as a wardrobe girl for the pictures.

"I'm so glad you have someone who cares about you so close, now," James had muttered into her hair in bed that evening. He took in a deep breath through his nose in a satisfied way. "I won't have to worry so much about you being home alone all day."

Gladys nuzzled into him and placed her hand on his chest. "No, darling, you won't," she said absently. She slid her slim fingers through his curls and imagined them instead as the ones nestled below Betty's naval, a favorite resting place of her left hand.

* * *

While the war was still in full swing and Gladys hadn't heard heads nor tails of her fiance in six months, she and Betty had curled into the warmth of one another for the umpteenth time in Betty's rickety boarding house bed, cool from the winter air but warm from whisky. It was supplied that evening by Vera, who had "borrowed" new records from somewhere and felt that a hallway party was in order.

"Oh, Betty. It's so wonderful to have you," Gladys muttered, heaving a sigh. "I don't know what I'd do, what with James gone and not writing."

Betty drew off a cigarette above her head and stubbed it out on the nightstand before she dropped ashes into Gladys's hair. "You could always get your kicks with a shore boy."

Gladys groaned comically. "Not Louis again. No, thank you." She chuckled.

"Hey, you're still supposed to marry him, remember. If James doesn't come home, you've always got another option."

Gladys swatted her stomach. "Don't talk like that!" She leaned up to scowl disapprovingly at the blonde before settling back into the mattress.

"I can't imagine what that must feel like," Betty began. "To have someone you plan to marry so far away and not know what they're doing, or if they're safe." She swallowed the lump in her throat. Now was not the time.

Gladys shrugged. "It's mostly just surreal. As if tomorrow I'd find him in Father's study like he'd never left." She shimmied her body closer to her friend's. "But I should imagine you feel the same way. About Kate," she said quietly.

Betty shook her head. "Honestly, I don't think that much about her anymore. It was like that at first. And then I was just angry about it. Now, life's gone on back to the way it was before she came."

They lay in companionable silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts . Betty broke the silence first.

"What do you miss the most?"

Gladys wasn't sure, really. So she opted for humor, something she'd learned from Betty. "The sex."

Betty snorted. "Was it really that good?"

Gladys thought for a minute. "Well, I'm not sure. I don't have anything to compare it to, except for maybe Louis's fumbling hands, and God knows that was unfulfilling."

_A pretty girl like you could have your pick of shore boys,_ she wanted to say, but instead, they fell back into a long silence.

"What do you miss the most?"

"I suppose getting to do just this," Betty said, twisting her hands around in each other.

"I hope I make you a little less lonely," Gladys muttered.

Betty wrapped an arm around her. "You do," she admitted.

The slender brunette sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth and nibbled pensively. It couldn't possibly hurt to try. At worst, she wouldn't care for it, and all would return to normal. At best, the arrangement brought them both enjoyment and eased the dull aches of loneliness. A little tipsy but very much serious, she placed a hand on Betty's stomach. "Betty?" She ventured quietly.

"Hmm?"

"You know, I think you may… May be able to help me feel a little less lonely, too," she whispered nervously.

Betty, having a sense of where this was going, readjusted the position of her head and shirt collar nervously and tried to play unassuming. Feeling a familiar warmth spreading from the pit of her stomach, she held the brunette closer and answered in a voice too low. "How could I do that, Princess?"

Gladys nuzzled her nose into Betty's neck. "I trust you," she began quietly, shakily. "And I need to-. Well. I…"

Betty slid her hand under the hem of Gladys's blouse and rubbed circles on her back. "I'm a little out of practice," she whispered with a smile.

"Then I won't feel quite so inept," Gladys whispered giddily, resting her face against Betty's ample breast.

Betty rested her chin atop Gladys's head, now lightly dragging her fingernails per the soft skin of her lower back where it dipped inward ever so slightly. It was an intimate gesture, she realized, but appropriate, after all.

"What's gotten into you?" It was more of a quiet statement, subtly humorous.

"I need to feel, Betts."

Betty chuckled. "And here I thought I'd done good on my missionary work."

Gladys smiled against the blonde's skin. "Maybe you have." She kissed the bit of her collarbone peeking out above her top. "But mostly, I just trust you."

* * *

Nearly six years later, Gladys Dunn, as she know was called, found herself fumbling with the latch of a gate in her backyard, installed to allow convenient passage between her home and Betty's. Thankfully, she had thought to locate the key to the backdoor while still in the light of her own kitchen.

"What horrible time of night is it?" Betty grumbled, groggily pulling Gladys into the warmth of the rumpled bed.

"Half-passed ungodly," she replied, rubbing her toes the length of her bedmate's legs.

"I told you to quit doing that. It hurts."

Gladys stilled her legs. "Sorry," she mumbled, inserting her upper half into Betty's arms.

"What's James going to say in the morning when you're not there to cook his breakfast?"

"That I couldn't sleep and bothered you by telephone until you let me in."

"Oh." She pressed her lips to her companion's forehead.

Gladys closed her eyes and sighed. "Sometimes I want to thump his head into the wall."

Betty snorted. "What happened?" She chuckled quietly.

Gladys lazily wound her fingers through Betty's hair. "He's such a bore these days and on and on about children. Could you imagine? Me with brats?"

"I'd rather not," Betty chuckled.

"Besides, I couldn't bear to be all fat and wobbly for a year."

"Have you mentioned this all to James?"

Gladys disentangled her wedding ring from Betty's hair. "I've tried. But there's no telling that man 'no.'" She stared at the ceiling, thinking about just how few times she had ever denied him anything. The most recent had been in the last two days, and she'd refused sex in the light of the afternoon, lest he find the patch of "love spots" between her breasts where Betty had gotten a little carried away the day before.

"Do you get jealous?"

Betty reached blindly for the water on her nightstand. "Of?"

"James. My marriage. Anything."

Betty took a very long drink and did not speak until she replaced the glass on the table. The wait for a response made Gladys fidget.

"No, I can't say that I am," she said honestly. "But I suppose I can see where I should be."

Gladys turned on her side to face Betty and settled her nose into her companion's neck. "What are we, Betts? What are we doing?"

Betty grinned and slid her hand into the waistband of Gladys's pajama bottoms to rest on the skin of her thigh. "We're the breast of friends."

It took a moment, but when Gladys caught on, laughter poured from her lips and into Betty's hair. "Do you suppose other friends do this?"

"Some friends get together for tea. Some call each other every day. Some going shopping. But we, my dear Gladie, we fuck."

Gladys shrieked and howled with laughter. "Betty!"

Grinning like the cat who caught the mouse, Betty said, "What? We do. And I wouldn't have it anyway else." She draped her leg over her friend and held her in place. "I-. Hmm," She began. And then, a little more thoughtfully, "I do, you know, care about you, " she said. She locked her eyes with those in front of her. "But you don't exactly make my heart stop." She pulled Gladys's hand to her lips and kissed it.

"You don't make mine stop, either," Gladys whispered with a grin. "But you can make it flutter."

Betty touched her lips to Gladys's. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yes. With infuriation. I think it may be a medical condition."

Betty snorted and shoved at her friend. "Get out of my bed!"

Gladys's grin grew wider and she pulled Betty into her arms. "Darling," She began with a sigh, "I'm suddenly overwhelmed with sleep, so if you would turn off the lamp..."


	2. Chapter 2

**This originally started as a stand-alone fic called "Rationed Sugar," but it was too similar to what I'd started with "Fences" so I switched it up a little to fit. I'm not sure how I feel about it... Suggestions are welcomed! **

* * *

For the first while following the whiskied conversation they'd had in Betty's tiny bed, opportunity for contact only arose from the bottom of a bottle. But even then, they hadn't moved far beyond their typical closeness. They mostly just lay in Betty's bed, or once or twice, the bed Gladys had shared with James in his apartment (which had been left for Gladys to inhabit while he was off to war) and occasionally, Gladys's lips fell upon the soft skin of Betty's breast where she lay her head. They hadn't taken to kissing on the lips just yet, then.

Sleeplessly curled up beside Betty while James snored next-door in the new bed they now shared (when she could be bothered to stay home), Gladys couldn't exactly recall the transition from drunkenly sleeping nude with Betty to having a full-on affair of sorts. She can recall the first time they had… relations. But she reflects that evening instead upon a different night that stands out more in her memory, and she can't pinpoint why. Maybe it was the first time they'd been sober.

* * *

"You're engaged," Betty murmured against soft lips.

"I won't tell if you don't," Came the sultry reply, followed in rapid succession by a poorly stifled groan of satisfaction. She was extraordinarily satisfied just as much with her self as she was with the ministrations of her buxom cohort.

The blonde's lips danced in a wild unmatched rhythm to her slowly pumping fingers deep in her cohort's warmth. "We really shouldn't do this anymore, Princess," she barely choked. There was only so much articulation a girl could muster when someone's terrifically long and tailored fingernails were tickling the softest parts of her skin.

"You. Say. That," Gladys mustered between pants and thrusts of Betty's nimble digits, "_UNGH_." Her eyelids fluttered closed and she rocked her hips in earnest. "But here you are," _moan_. "Putting those very skilled hands to use."

Betty's response was to hiss as Gladys pinched the rosied, raised skin of her breast. "Not that I'm complaining," Gladys hastily added.

"I demand to be present when you explain this all to Clappy."

"I told you to stop calling him that," Gladys panted. She was so terribly close to that delicate edge and she hoped desperately that she wouldn't lose the moment.

Betty swiftly quelled her fears with a sweeping motion of her thumb.

"If you have even given me V-"

But she was interrupted by the inevitable and uncontrollable shiver along her spine called into action by Gladys's whimpering moans of ecstasy and the grip of her internal muscles around Betty's fingers.

Gladys settled unceremoniously into the pillows and pulled the blonde gently to her chest. Having forgotten the swift remark she'd intended to deliver into their most untimely conversation, she kissed the top of Betty's hair to stall while she collected her scattered thoughts. A sudden pang shot through her skin and seemingly directly into her heart as she realized that she couldn't imagine sharing this moment (or a moment like it) with anyone but Betty. The thought of the skin of someone else's face resting upon her bare breast suddenly turned her stomach, and yet so did the idea that she had become so attached to a woman.

"I don't understand why you can't just take things for what they are. Be right here and now with me. I'm not bothering with the future anymore, Betts. What comes, comes. Let's have happiness while we have it."

There was silence for a few long moments.

"Have you suddenly fallen in love with me?" Gladys meant it to have an edge of humor, but she found herself unwittingly holding her breath in her throat awaiting the reply.

"Not that kind of love, Princess," Betty grumbled. "I'm just not looking forward to the day I lose you, too."

Gladys could see her point. "I don't intend to ever leave. The sex may be temporary but I'm not," she said sternly. She brushed the backs of her fingers along Betty's cheek. "If I love you enough to share my… my body with you, I love you enough to always love you."

All this talk of love was making her ill, and her mind flashed to James in a foxhole somewhere, whispering to someone about his girl "back home."

"I'm pretty fond of you, too."

Gladys combed her fingers through Betty's hair and trailed them in a continuous motion along Betty's side and stopped at her hip, placing her hand there. "Someday, James will come back, and you'll find a beautiful gal who loves you more than you knew love could be, and we'll still be the dearest of friends with a very interesting secret." A sly smirk spread across her lips.

Continuing, she murmured, "I'd never deny all that you've given me."

Betty wanted so badly to make a joke about denying it should Gladys give her venereal disease, but in a rare feat, she held her tongue. Instead, she said softly, "Gives a new meaning to that 'filler 'til the boys come home' saying." She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. After a moment, she added, "I never thought I'd see this day."

"What day?"

"I'm not sure what's stranger, the two of us in the sheets, or you in the sheets with a lady altogether."

Gladys chuckled. "I never planned on it, I suppose. It's like sugar rations. Everyone gets what they're allotted in this 'great time of need'." She traced her fingertips in swirling, sweeping patterns across the blonde's skin.

"Why did you choose me?"

Gladys kissed the top of her head. "Why not? I think sex, love, and romance are separate entities. One alone is never enough, and all at once is the formula for marriage. Sometimes, when you pair the correct two together, the result is just right."

"I used to think love and romance were one-and-the-same."

"I love my cat," Gladys said flatly.

"Love between people," Betty said softly.

"Do you love me?"

Betty stammered. "I, uh, I mean…"

"In any capacity."

Betty flushed. "Well, I said I was fond of you."

"Do you have any plans to get dressed up and take me to a fancy candlelight dinner?"

The blonde snorted. "I'll make sandwiches and fill a flask and sit with you on a blanket in the park."

"Do you intend to sweep me off my feet?"

"From time to time I want to knock you onto your ass."

Gladys grinned. "That's the difference between romanticism and love."

Betty nodded slowly. "I see that, now."

* * *

All of that still rang true for Gladys, but she'd begun to wonder how many of the lines between the three they had blurred somewhere along the way. However many it had been, she decided, was the correct amount.

She slid into place behind the blonde and wrapped and arm around her waist, pulling them flush together. Thinking about their precarious position on the edge of friendship, she considered her placement. She didn't have any urge to whisper sweet nothings into Betty's ear. She just wanted the closeness. It was normal enough, she supposed.

They had some friends, interesting, hep friends, some of whom Betty had known for years before Gladys met them. They were all lesbians, and a few happened to be married. She could never really forget the evening about a year prior in which one of them charged into the bar dressed very much for daytime housekeeping, cursing her husband. She'd called him a chore and a bother, amongst other things. Gladys had been tremendously taken aback. She'd never fancied herself a lesbian at all, but given her circumstances, she'd wondered briefly if that woman's anger applied to her situation as well. She certainly didn't hate James, and didn't consider him a "chore." He was her husband, after all.

She found comfort in the fact that her relationship to Betty was so _unlesbian_ that not even their _hep_ friends knew what they did. Neither of them ever felt the need to mention it, she supposed. She smiled to herself as she pushed her nose into Betty's haywire hair. Betty was right, she thought. They simply were friends who… well.

Betty turned over in her arms and with her eyes closed, wrapped herself around Gladys instead in an effort to keep her still. "Shhhh," she whispered loudly. "To sleep."

It would be too much work to evade her captor. Thoughtlessly, she kissed Betty's lips softly and settled into place. She surrendered to sleep in minutes.


End file.
